Goats and sheep

And so it continues. Things may have quietened down a little today within the Herald pages, but since my post yesterday, I have been drawn into another battle within the theatre blog pages.

It seems that we are all exhausting a lot of energy on discussing the terms of reference about the ‘problem that is the STC’ and at the centre of this problem is the way the Herald started it all.

As I wrote on Monday, I agree with Alison Croggon that the validity of what Moody is saying is questionable as it is firstly emotive and secondly not helpful.

Despite this, the debate is turning into other more constructive avenues, and maybe what the Herald have done is give us all a good kick up the bum and ask in all honesty, “whadd’ya reckon about this STC mob?”

My attention has now been directed to an article that Diana Simmonds wrote on Stage Noise. Unfortunately I missed it as I find the Stage Noise website hard to navigate… which I probably need to get over if I am going to keep missing the latest opinion pieces.

For most, the article in the Herald on Saturday has been met with dismay, but for Simmonds, it was vindicating after her recent attack on the progress of The Actors Company ensemble at the STC.

“In a recent review of Upton's Riflemind I expressed concern about the self interest, sycophancy and starstruck silliness now surrounding the STC and its new artistic leaders. Who is going to tell the playwright when he's prancing around starkers? Who will dare tell Cate that she looks fantastic in Armani but having Giorgio "dress" a production is a dodgy way of enticing theatre-lovers into an auditorium. That you might get your corporate sponsors' youngbloods tearing themselves away from edgy bars and edgy apartments for an evening, but will they return? Will it translate into theatre-literate audiences? Will it halt the dribble-away of subscribers?”

There seems to be a lot of contention over who is and who isn’t worth the time. For Alison Croggon, “it seems to me that there are some outspoken voices who want their theatre nice, and want to get rid of adventurers like Kosky, and any excuse will do.

“Frankly, I think if they succeed, it will be a tragedy. Do you really want a straight diet of Noel Coward, dead plays and musicals up there? Not that there's anything wrong with Coward, or musicals, in a balanced menu; but I rather think that's the subtext.”

I think that’s quite unfair and I couldn’t disagree more. And here we get to the nitty gritty of critical commentary. Barrie Kosky is a great talent, but I left his previous adventure bored and bewildered and had to depart by the middle of the third act. Having followed his work in Sydney, then Vienna and then back to Sydney again, I am personally sick of the same theatrical images over and over and over and over again. Is it good theatrical practice to have so much repetition? It’s not about Noel Coward, it’s about furthering the field of opportunity.

Alison Croggon has made it clear that she thinks Benedict Andrews as a director is positive. And as she is aware, I am well and truly yet to be convinced, having seen similar work, styles and designs in Germany.

For mainstream reviewers the latest work of Andrew Upton was pretty good… for everyone else, it was a walk-out-able performance of the greatest magnitude.

I could go on and on about the differences between what Alison, Diana, Bryce and anyone else has to the talent that the STC employ.

But what underlies all of this is a frustration with opportunity. A frustration that is naturally going to be directed towards the institution with the most money, with the most prestige and the most to lose.

People see the leaps and bounds that Blanchett and Upton have made up the ladder of opportunity while a plethora of others have been digging away, both here and abroad for years and years. And it is all part of that generational change, particularly of generation X and Y that don’t understand why there isn’t more opportunity… more money.

They see a husband and wife team that have been entrenched in institutions their entire adult lives and wonder, where will the adventure come from? Where will the originality? And for many, the originality hasn’t been shown yet. For many Andrews doesn’t represent it and Kosky doesn’t either.

For many directors I speak to, they are utterly perplexed by the actors company. Why doesn’t the STC appoint a regular director and creative team to unite and explore theatrical exploration over time, they say. For them, it just doesn’t make sense to have an ensemble sitting there like a train station greeting trains as they come in and then sending them on again never to be seen again.

There are real questions to be raised about the STC and The Actors Company, and as Alison Croggon has so appropriately put “the real task is sorting out the valid criticisms from the bile”.

And if we can get over the Moody affair, we may very well begin to start answering the question about where we want out STC to go. And for the first time in quite a while, we may very well be heard.